Experiences of discrimination and mental health treatment seeking among LGBQ+ veterans.

Examining differences in mental health and mental health service use among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual veterans.

“…Bisexual women in the general population are at increased risk for mental health conditions, including PTSD, depression, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, compared with heterosexual and lesbian/gay women (Ross et al, 2018; Salway et al, 2019; Scheer et al, 2023). Research should examine whether mental health treatment is effective and satisfactory for this subpopulation as some research has demonstrated possible mental health treatment disparities (Beard et al, 2017; Harper et al, 2023).…”

“…Specific to mental health care utilization, need for care may be influenced by the presence of mental health disorders, mental health symptom severity, or psychosocial functioning. To the best of our knowledge, only one study accounted for need for care when comparing sexual minority and heterosexual veterans and found no differences in likelihood of mental health services after adjusting for need (Harper et al, 2023). However, in nonveteran samples, sexual minority individuals are more likely to use mental health treatment compared with heterosexual individuals even after accounting for functioning difficulties, self-reported mental health diagnoses, and mental distress (S.…”